


Before

by Maifuri



Category: Stormwatch (Comics), The Authority
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Meeting, M/M, Pre-Series, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 02:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4810664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maifuri/pseuds/Maifuri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Midnighter meets Apollo for the first time. Twice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before

The man who soon would forget even his name walked slowly through the hallways of the facility. His mind was filled with the past, as if clinging to something that already was ceasing to exist. Only a few hours more... and the pain would fade. The faces would fade, the smiles, the desire and even the blood. All of the blood, all of the pain. His future was clear. Now there was only one way out. No escape.  
"This is the day." had said the cold one in the morning. He didn't know his name, "No need for names, they will be erased anyway, if you choose to let it happen. There will be nothing left."  
Choose to let it happen. Weren't they oh-so-gentle? As if there really was a choice. "I tried this many times before. Most of them died. Are you sure you want to do this?" Because if he wasn't sure, there was little to no chance he would survive. They needed a fighter, that was the only reason they didn't pick any homeless, drugged mongrel from the streets, but went through all the trouble of finding a volunteer without alarming other people, mighty people, who would want to stop this insanity. But who in his right mind would volunteer to do this? Losing his painful life, but afterwards only going through more pain, inflicting more pain.  
Only a man who had lost all options, who had plugged all the ways out, but was still clinging to life, desperately. Without hope, but still filled with desire and therefore not able to die. A man like him.  
So, this was the day. He tried to make his farewell, saying good-bye to the faces of the people he once loved. Love... he still knew how it felt to love, how it hurt, he couldn't believe he would be able to forget even that. He felt the sweat running over his back, panicking for a moment before remembering that it didn't really matter anymore. Nothing mattered . He only needed to be calm, to pull himself together for only a few more moments. He would make it through the surgery. Dying was impossible, he knew it, had tried it before. And lived through everything.  
The sound of steps coming towards him would have been a surprise, if he still had the vigor to feel something like surprise. He hadn't encountered many people over the days he had spent in the facility.  
A group of people was marching in his direction. For a moment he thought they came because of him, they wanted to take him away and shut the whole place down and he would keep all of the memories and continue to neither live nor die.  
But they weren't. They all were wearing the uniform of the facility, synthetics and metal covering their whole bodies. Dark, faceless figures he could sometimes swear had lost their souls in the process.  
And between all the black and blue was walking something -someone- entirely else. Sure, his clothes were dark, but they were a glimpse of the outside world, a world without empty hallways and ominous promises. And his skin, his hair, even his eyes were light. The man who had bid farewell to his name couldn't help being consumed by this face, no, the whole person.  
It was like walking towards destiny, like seeing a future full of death and pain and besides it... so close... something else. A notion of fate went through his body, made his skin tickle and his senses buzz. Suddenly he felt a jolt of energy. He was a predator who had, after a long time of starving, finally found a trace of its prey.  
As the group was moving towards him, the light man looked up and the nameless one met his gaze. He recognized the look immediately. It was hopelessness and the stubborn will to live nearly hidden under a wall of all-consuming emptiness. But the pace of the man didn't waver even once, his whole body emphasized determination.  
And when the nameless one continued his way to surviving, he exactly knew what the man was gonna do. That they had made the same decision, were one of a kind. He had met the light to his infinite darkness, the sun to his starless sky. And that he wouldn't die, not today and not the day after.  
...  
Later, he would cling to this thought, to this memory, when they cut his head open and injected needles into his stomach and transplanted another heart into his chest. He would let it fill his mind and his soul, hoping it could be part of his new not-life, too.  
...  
And even later, he would have forgotten it. He would stand before someone, no something, a mirror, a piece of glass reflecting light, a neutral corner in his mind would inform him, and not even remember his own face, that was now covered by a black mask, far less the existence of some man he had met somewhere at an unidentified time he couldn't quite grasp.  
And then, after a few more moments that could have either been seconds, hours or days, given that they were his whole lifespan and he wasn't really able to estimate how long he had lived, as body and intellect gave different information, someone would enter the room somewhere to his left, two people, and their pure presence would make a thousand possibilities of fighting processes spin in his head. He would turn towards them and, at the same time thinking about ripping the head of the first one off, a person that seemed cold to him in a hard to understand way. The man would look at him with a strange expression of pride, as if watching some kind of masterpiece he had created and he would say "Midnighter", what apparently was his name now, "this is Apollo. He is the leader of the team you will join and you will obey his every word, just like you obey me. You two will form a special partnership. I expect you to... complement each other rather well. Understood?"  
And he would look at the other man, who apparently was even wearing some form of variation of his own clothes, and, for the first time since he woke up in that sterile room, he would be able to look at a human being without seeing himself killing it countless times.  
The corners of his mouth would crawl up in something resembling a smile, a motion that seemed highly unfamiliar. The Midnighter would speak and hear his own voice for the first time.  
"I'm really looking forward to it, Apollo."


End file.
